EARTHWORM JIM: SPECIAL EDITION ARTICLES

December 8, 2008 - In the aftermath of Sonic the Hedgehog's meteoric 1991 rise, publishers scrambled to copycat SEGA's success by cobbling together their own platformers starring anthropomorphic animals. And every single one of them had to have 'tude, because the full word "attitude" was for your old man. In fact, Sonic inspired so many of these copycats that they practically became an entire subgenre for the platformer. But what so many publishers failed to understand in the middle of their board meetings was that Sonic's success was not just because of his alleged attitude, but also because the game was incredibly well designed and SEGA fans desperately wanted/needed a mascot to call their own. Sonic fit that bill. His imitators did not.
And so, IGN Retro chronicles the legion of Sonic impersonators in a continuing series: What Hath Sonic Wrought?